White Privilege

White privilege is the concept that European Americans benefit from specific advantages—denied to people of color—solely because of their nonminority status. These are unearned benefits derived not from merit, and these benefits are often taken for granted, if even acknowledged at all. White privilege generally refers to White, male, Anglo-Saxon, middle to upper class, heterosexual, able-bodied individuals.

The concept of White privilege has been evident in discussions of prejudice for some time, but Peg Mclntosh articulated it in a way that was able to reach European American counseling students and scholars of all backgrounds. Mclntosh, a feminist author writing in the area of male privilege, began to speculate, not about how she was oppressed as a woman, but whether she herself was privileged due to her status as a White person. She used the analogy of a backpack filled with unearned privileges that White persons are given at birth. Her work was seminal and formed much of the subsequent discussions on this topic.

White privilege is best understood when examined in the context of power and oppression. Individuals as [Page 1376]well as groups of people can be the victims of classism, sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression. Multicultural competency, a cornerstone of the contemporary counseling paradigm, involves integrating this understanding into practice. However, to achieve this end, it is important for researchers and practitioners to grasp a firm understanding of the dynamics of oppression and its underlying structural components.

Oppression denotes a feeling of being weighed down and kept down by an unnecessary or unjust use of power: Oppression exists symbiotically with power. For oppression to be present, there has to be a stratified system of power differential among people in a society. That is, one person or one group needs to be on top or in a position of power, while another person or group of people is subjugated or kept in a position without power, or at least in a position without as much power as the other group. An integral aspect in the examination of the dynamics of oppression and White privilege is the often overlooked notion that people benefit from oppression without even realizing they are doing so. Many privileged members of the group with power in society do not want to think that they are living their lives in a manner that is oppressing anyone, yet every day they directly and indirectly benefit from the dynamics of oppression.

These dynamics of oppression continue to exist in society because it is difficult to enact systemic change when people are comfortable where they are in their current state of existence. The transaction of empowerment requires a power reallocation; that is, for change to occur, the people with privilege have to surrender some degree of their power. Historically, examinations of oppression have focused on the victims. However, to best understand White privilege, there needs to be an honest and thorough examination of the people who are benefiting from this power, with an emphasis on how it is highly advantageous for them to maintain their power and privilege.

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